


it should have been us

by aspentree



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adult Language, Angst, Fluff, Lots of Cursing, M/M, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, hello yes i am tagging, hint: they’re both idiots, idk what im doing, im a nerd dont judge me, keith is oblivious, lance is also oblivious, look im really just writing this on a whim, theyre idiots but I love them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 13:42:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14082186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspentree/pseuds/aspentree
Summary: Sometimes it takes loving someone else to learn how to love yourself.





	it should have been us

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes it takes loving someone else to learn how to love yourself.
> 
> -
> 
> kind of a vent fic, kind of not? anyway, please enjoy and spam my inbox when i dont update bc hell knows how many unfinished fics are collecting dust on my profile at this point. comments are always appreciated! (even if theyre just ‘aaaa’ like seriously. i love comments. please joke around with me or yell at me in the comments. both are great. im rambling. sorry.)

**Present Day**

 

He’s in his car, it’s raining outside, and hot tears are carving rivers down the plane of his face. It’s shameful; sobbing like a child, feeling like a goddamn wet blanket even though there is no one to laugh at him. His knuckles are turning white against the steering wheel, and his life feels like a page ripped right out of one of Shakespeare’s plays. If it ends in a funeral, it’s a tragedy. If it ends in a wedding, it’s a comedy.  
  
Except nobody died, nobody got married, and he’s just a journalist crying alone in his car.

Lance has his hand pulled down over his eyes, blocking out the stares and confused looks passerbys are giving him. It probably wasn’t the best idea to park in the back lot of some restaurant after work and just completely break down. The torrent of rain just seems to come down harder, like it’s going to dent the front hood of his car and leave pebbles skittered about in the blades of grass. With every plink of raindrops, his hand curls tighter around the wheel. Coiled, like the death grip of a python, slowly tensing. Suffocating.   
  
He’s choking.  
  
He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. Today was fine. Work went well. He churned out a news story, did an interview, brewed coffee. Woke up at the asscrack of dawn just to go to work. Raked his fingers repeatedly through his hair as if his scalp wasn’t irritated from doing that yesterday, the day before, and the day before that.  
  
Fingers reach for his phone, lying in the passenger seat. Cradled in napkins; everywhere he goes, he steals napkins. He instantly calls the only person he can trust right now.  
  
”This is Keith.”   
  
“H-Hey asshole,” Lance says, swallowing heavily as he rubs tears from the sides of his face.  
  
”What’s wrong?”  
  
How does he know?  
  
Every year ever since they met in the bathroom of some stupid sophomore year party, he always knows what’s wrong. As if he has some strange superpower. Keith stares straight through Lance’s soul with those smoky amethyst eyes, and for some reason, he doesn’t find it weird. He doesn’t find it weird, because he’s the only person that’s stayed with him for this long. Roomed with him in college, put up with his stupid, drunk, high, anxious antics.  
  
Because if he didn’t, who would have?  
  
”I got denied again,” he hisses, hands releasing the steering wheel as he leans back in his seat, inhaling the strangely musky scent of rain. “Meds don’t work like they used to.”  
  
”Come home and we can talk about it.” Keith replies, a frown in his voice. He can picture it now, the slight pout of his lips, the wrinkle between his brows. Like he’s thinking really hard about something.  
  
It’s that look that just fucking destroys him. It’s the look of several days gone without sleeping, it’s the look of an exhausted young adult just looking for home. But home’s miles away and all he has is a run-down apartment with his childhood best friend and coworker.   
  
“Maybe after the rain.”  
  
”You’re either coming home right now, or I’m bringing home to you.”   
  
“Goddamn, chill out. Fine. I’m coming.”  
  
There’s a snort, a click, and then nothing.

  
  
**10th Grade**  
  
Keith has just walked into the bathroom at school, and he’s immediately struck with the most repulsive sight he’s ever seen. A boy his age with mussed up brown hair is vomiting into the toilet, stall wide open, shaking arms cradled around the base of it. There’s nobody else there, and the lights are flickering on and off like instead of being a school it’s some kind of 60s gas station.   
  
He wants to just go wash his hands but it smells so strongly of alcohol and barf, he’s considering joining him.

”Can you  _please_ stop making it smell like a margarita bar in here?” Keith asks in his usual blunt tone, turning the sink on with a push of his hand and beginning to wash his hands.  
  
The boy replies expertly with another retch and the sound of a toilet being flushed.

He stands alone at the sink until the boy joins him there, hair disheveled. He smells like coconuts and a disgusting mix of different flavors of spiked punch, but it’s almost pleasant. Almost.  
  
”Sorry,” he slurs, hunched over the sink as he tries to gather what was left of his self confidence. There’s a deep, thick silence between them as Keith shakes out his hands, letting drops of water smack against linoleum tiles. Bass thrums dully through the walls; the DJ hired by some dunce decided to play some Queen after the Footloose disaster a few minutes ago.  
  
”You should seriously go home.”  
  
”It’s only 10 o’ clock,” the boy insists, lifting his head. “What kind of loser goes home at 10?”  
  
”It’s not called being a loser, it’s called having common sense. You’re clearly drunk off your ass,” Keith comments, swiping his damp hands against his jean-clad thighs, “and you’re stinking up the entire damn restroom. Come on. If you can’t drive yourself home, I’ll drive you home.”  
  
”You can’t do that! That’s, like, basically kidnapping.”

Keith drags him to the car anyway, arms curled underneath the boy’s armpits. Kids stand around watching, Solo cups in hand, sloshing beer and punch around like it’s some sort of water park, but instead of water, it’s alcohol. It smells like feet and vomit and he’s more than ready to leave this place. He grunts and pulls him along the concrete once they’ve safely navigated the hall and front doors. His car is waiting by the curb.  
  
”I can’t believe this is happening,” slurs the boy again, brown hair sticking up in tufts like a cloud as he looks left and right at the ghost-like appearance of the high school. The lights outside are on, cars are parked haphazardly everywhere, but the only lights in the buildings are fixated on the gym. 

Hopefully the police arrive soon.  
  
Keith heaves the plastered Latino boy into his chair with a grunt, shutting the door and getting onto his side of the car. He turns the ignition on with his key and turns the parking brake off. The boy lolls his head over, his pupils so blown wide there is only a sliver of azure visible. “Thanks.”  
  
”No problem. Let’s get you home before you vomit all over my upholstery.”

It’s a quiet drive down to where the kid told him his house was. Though it’s only 10 PM, the roads seem unusally clear. Nevertheless, Keith is secretly relieved he doesn’t have to deal with Oregon traffic. When they get there, the boy’s mother answers the door. She’s a kind woman, wrinkles tracing smile lines. She levels her eyes down to her miserably drunk son.  
  
”Oh, _cielito_ , what have you done?” She breathes, looking more disappointed than angry. She tuts and grabs him from Keith, pulling him up to his feet as if this had happened multiple times before. “Thank you for bringing Lance home. You’re a great friend.”  
  
”Yeah. Friend.” Keith awkwardly replies as the boy—Lance, he reminds himself—gives him some finger guns that might have been funny if they weren’t in such a strange situation, and promptly throws up on the front step, gallantly avoiding Keith’s shoes.  
  
And they say chivalry’s dead.

  
***  
  
The next day at school is full of laughter. Photos of people passed out drunk on the floors of the school gym are being floated about, and the teachers are really cracking down on upping school security. Keith has the liberty of not being embarrassingly hungover, unlike the boy he had encountered in the school men’s bathroom, driven home, learned his name, and somehow earned the name of ‘friend’ in about an hour.  
  
Keith sits down at his lunch table. His brother, Shiro, and his girlfriend, Allura, are busily chatting between shared bites of panini. Sunlight streaks in through the windows, and then by some twist of fate, the boy from last night sits down at his table with a single apple, a bottle of water, and looks like death.  
  
”Hey, Keith.” Lance says, blue eyes almost nonexistent, hidden behind brunette bangs. He still smells like a margarita bar, but less pungent. “How’s it going?”  
  
”How’s your hangover?”  
  
”Oh, fuck you.”  
  
And that was the start of a beautiful friendship.  
  
  
**Present Day**

He’s back at the apartment and Keith is busily stirring up some instant coffee abomination in the kitchenette. Lance is sitting there with a box of tissues, balls of them piled up on the floor. His shoulders are still shaking but his tears are long gone.  
  
”You feeling better?” Keith asks, holding out the mug. Lance grimaces and takes it, sipping tentatively. It’s awful, but Keith made it, so he swallows it down.   
  
“Yeah. I’m feeling alright.”  
  
”And being denied? Denied from what?” His hands are folded across his chest, rumpling his black T-shirt. He’s like a cartoon character in the sense that he wears almost the same outfit every day.   
  
”I tried to get an interview with someone but got denied. Couldn’t put it in the papers. Anxiety meds not working kind of contributed to the breakdown.” Lance doesn’t feel exactly in the mood to speak much, throat burning from the heat of the beverage he had just carelessly thrown back like some sort of shot.   
  
Keith’s violet eyes stare through his soul again, but instead of saying anything, he moves to slip his jacket off. He hangs the red jacket onto one of the hooks by the front door, heaving in a breath.

Lance doesn’t know what he would do without Keith. He would be lost in a world of prescriptions and girls he would never call back, constant highs and lows. Ever since high school, they’ve been inseparable. Some things just don’t change.  
  
The rain still pounds against their window, making Lance’s heart pause and start again like a worn-out engine. It’s quiet again, between them, and the white noise of the raindrops fills in the silence.  
  
”I’m going to take a shower. And maybe get a smoke.” He says, brushing back his hair between pale fingers. It’s like his whole life has been consumed by the air he breathes. 

“Don’t smoke. You stink up the apartment like some sophomore party,” Lance says, the hint of humor worming in between bites of words.   
  
Keith’s mouth turns up into a smirk as he turns to head down the hall, lifting up a hand. “You got it, asshole.”  
  
”Enjoy your shower, fuckface.”  
  
”Yeah, yeah...”  
  
The door to the bathroom shuts and the shower water is turned on. Lance sits there on the couch, smiling to himself. If things were like this every day, he wouldn’t know how to stand it.   
  
He goes to scrub down Keith’s mess, swiping instant coffee powder into the trash and wiping the countertops free of creamer. It’s funny how the ex-barista, now-turned-professional-photographer, makes terrible coffee and doesn’t know how to clean up after himself. The thought makes Lance’s lips curve into a smile. Down the hall, the soft sounds of warm shower water reminds him of summers spent together and semesters spent apart. It’s impressive how long they’ve stayed together.  
  
Then again, living together was more of Allura’s idea.  
  
As the head of the company after her father’s unfortunate passing, she had the idea to put her best writer and best photographer together, just as an experiment. Figures they both work in the same department, grew up together, went to college together, and are both best friends.  
  
Figures.  
  
Keith leaves the shower a few minutes later, a towel wrapped around his shoulders. “By the way, Allura said Voltron’s getting a fresh perspective. Two new people are coming into work tomorrow.”  
  
”Yeah? Sounds interesting. I’m so hyped.” Lance deadpanned. Keith, being himself, barely reacted.

**Author's Note:**

> i suck i know


End file.
